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Boycott / sanction Saudi Arabia!

The Trudeau government says it is trying to find a way to end shipments of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia as Riyadh comes under mounting condemnation for the costly war it’s waging in neighbouring Yemen and the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

What the government could do is offer financial incentives to General Dynamics to get out of the killing business and restructure for the manufacture of electric vehicles - that's the future of mass transit and it will employ many thousands more people.

The Trudeau government says it is trying to find a way to end shipments of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia as Riyadh comes under mounting condemnation for the costly war it’s waging in neighbouring Yemen and the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It's easier and less expensive to stop aiding and abetting Saudi mass murder in Yemen than it is to destroy Canada's 2nd largest trading relationship with China helping America snatch a trade-war hostage. Yet Canada does the latter in the blink of an eye.

"Statistics Canada's latest trade data releases show that Canada is heading toward a record year in rifle and ammunition exports to Saudi Arabia, despite the kingdom's continued war in Yemen. As the worldwide chorus of opposition to the war in Yemen grows, the Trudeau administration continues to hold the line..."

Perfect cue for JT to follow head office and cut the contract for our death-machines.

Would JT really be following the US senate's lead in doing that? Has the US senate cancelled any contracts?

For that matter, does the US senate actually HAVE the power to cancel contracts? Sincere question, because I don't know how that would work down there, with their division of powers between the presidency and a bicameral congress.

It's a bit of a grey area. The contract itself is an executive power, but Congress (half of which is the Senate) can make funding of the military conditional upon it not being used for fulfillment of that contract, as it did with arms to the Contras in the 80s. However, this resolution is an invocation of the post-Vietnam War Powers Resolution, the compromise of dubious constitutionality between the fact Congress has exclusive constitutional jurisdiction to declare war and the fact incoming nuclear missiles don't give Congress much time to convene. Presuming the WPR is constitutionally valid (every president has claimed it isn't, but obeyed it anyway, and everyone's afraid to get a Supreme Court ruling either way), both House and Senate would have to adopt a declaration under it, in the same Congressional session. The Republican House isn't going to take this up in the lame duck, so for the next month, this is pure symbolism on the Senate's part. Even if both houses adopt the identical resolution next year, Trump has a dozen ways to ignore it (like saying the US isn't at war, it's just providing refueling, maintenance, and intelligence to Saudi Arabia), and Trump hasn't seemed terribly concerned with the separation of powers so far.

"Saudi Arabia's so angry with Canada, they sent their Saudi Cargo jets to Croatia to pick up and hand deliver Cirque du Soleil's equipment for 'Toruk: The First Flight' show currently running in Riyadh."

"Business as usual? Canadians like to think of themselves as peacemakers but too often discover that they are playing the part of powder-monkey. It remains to be seen whether Mr Trudeau will find a way to suspend or cancel the Saudi contract."

"The UN World Food Program is supposed to relieve populations in urgent need of food supplies. It is not supposed to be a partisan organization. But in the war on Yemen, it has now taken one side of the conflict and is threatening the other side with starvation...."

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Netflix is under fire for pulling an episode of U.S. comedian Hasan Minhaj’s show Patriot Act from Saudi Arabia, after officials from the kingdom complained to the streaming company that it violated Saudi cybercrime laws. The episode was posted in late October, a few weeks after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Hasan Minhaj sharply criticized the Saudi royal family and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

HASAN MINHAJ: Just a few months ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, was hailed as the reformer the Arab world needed. But the revelations about Khashoggi’s killing have shattered that image. And it blows my mind that it took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go, “Oh, I guess he’s really not a reformer.” Meanwhile, every Muslim person you know was like, “Yeah, no [bleep]. He’s the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.” So now would be a good time to reassess our relationship with Saudi Arabia. And I mean that as a Muslim and as an American. …

MBS was shocked by all of the anger over the killing of one journalist. According to The Wall Street Journal, on a phone call with Jared Kushner, MBS asked, “Why the outrage?” And frankly, MBS’s confusion is completely understandable. He has been getting away with autocratic [bleep] like this for years with almost no blowback from the international community.

quote:

AMY GOODMAN: Hasan Minhaj also took on Saudi Arabia targeting women drivers, on his censored episode of Patriot Act.

HASAN MINHAJ: Prisons are filling up in Saudi Arabia. Hundreds are being detained, including critics of MBS and political activists. Some of the most prominent activists are women who protested the driving ban, and MBS had them arrested. And several of them are still in prison today. Even executions are up. The country is on track to execute more than 2,000 people by the year 2030. Now, that’s the vision 2030 nobody’s talking about: strong-arming, coercion, detaining people. These are MBS’s go-to moves, and he’s been getting away with all of it.

HASAN MINHAJ: Since 2016, MBS has invested almost $11 billion in Silicon Valley, making Saudi Arabia the largest single funding source for U.S. startups. Come on, Silicon Valley. You’re supposed to be hippie capitalists. WeWork won’t let you expense meat. But you take money from Saudi Arabia? Let me—so, you’re against slaughterhouses, unless they’re in Yemen?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That’s Hasan Minhaj. Courtney Radsch, can you respond to that? You were talking about this earlier.

COURTNEY RADSCH: Yeah. I mean, I think that this is a really critical point that might be lost among the broader debate about this, you know, one incident, because it is so stark after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But the fact is, is that we are seeing that tech companies have this very complicated relationship with Saudi Arabia. And in the case of Netflix, it’s not clear, you know, how much revenue they receive from Saudi Arabia, what is that financial relationship. They have not responded on the record to those questions.

But we know that there are tech companies that have assets, personnel, etc., in very repressive countries, which can lead them to comply with, you know, what they might say is a valid local law, but, as Sarah noted, it’s not valid according to international standards. And we’re seeing that this is becoming complicated because in countries like Saudi Arabia, that’s highly censored, or Vietnam or Myanmar, where there are other mass atrocities happening with the Rohingya, for example, that these platforms, such as Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Twitter, are complying with government requests to take down content, oftentimes that should be protected under international law.

quote:

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, we’d like to end with a clip from the censored episode of Minhaj’s show, Patriot Act, on the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

HASAN MINHAJ: So, when you add it all up—its insane wealth, its place in Islam in the Middle East—it all makes Saudi Arabia a country of huge significance, which is why every single president since FDR has maintained a strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia. Whether it’s for oil or arms deals, we have always played it cool with the Saudis, no matter what they do. Remember, America hates terrorists. Saudi Arabia gave them passports. Saudi Arabia was basically the boy band manager of 9/11. They didn’t write the songs, but they helped get the group together.

^ Some other tweeters are saying that it was Horgan who called in the RCMP, not Trudeau. Loreto replied by saying that Trudeau should have upheld the Charter by nixing Horgan's request. Does anyone know the legal ins and outs of all this?

The fucking corporation called in the RCMP, as was their right when the injunction was granted. The BC NDP gave a green light to the project so that is what the injunction was based on. There is a law suit alleging that this project needs NEB approval but the injunction was granted anyways because that is how injunction law works. Pretty much the only thing that a Judge hearing an injunction application considers relevant is the economic interests of the company or person bringing the request for injunctive relief from someone interring with their lawful business.

^ Some other tweeters are saying that it was Horgan who called in the RCMP, not Trudeau. Loreto replied by saying that Trudeau should have upheld the Charter by nixing Horgan's request. Does anyone know the legal ins and outs of all this?

I believe the RCMP are under provincial control in this case, like Gustafsen Lake. But off topic.

For faux-rights groups like HRW and Amnesty – the fact that they have repeatedly failed to point out the central role the West – their sponsors – has played in creating the very wars and despots these refugees are fleeing from implicates and exposes them, voiding their credibility.

And yet a google search on "Amnesty International Saudi Arabia" turns up...

US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May to participate in the Riyadh summit, attended by representatives of more than 55 mostly Arab or Muslim-majority states. A USD300 billion arms deal between the USA and Saudi Arabia was announced during the visit.

The Saudi Arabia-led military coalition supporting the internationally recognized government in Yemen continued to bomb areas controlled or contested by Huthi forces and their allies, killing and injuring civilians. Some attacks amounted to war crimes. A UN report, released in September, found that the Saudi-led coalition continued to be the leading cause of civilian casualties in the conflict (see Yemen entry). In October, the UN Secretary-General listed the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in his annual Children and Armed Conflict report, creating a new category specifically designed to limit condemnation of the coalition.

And a google on "Amnesty International Canada-Saudi arms deal" turns up...

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau:

We, the undersigned, wish to express our profound concerns about the issuance of export permits for Canada’s multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia, despite the flagrant incompatibilities of this contract with the human rights safeguards of our export controls.

To provide such a large supply of lethal weapons to a regime with such an appalling record of human rights abuses is immoral and unethical. The spirit and letter of both domestic export controls and international law support this view. The government has had every opportunity to uphold this position, but has chosen not to. We therefore ask the government to rescind the export permits, ensuring that this deal does not go ahead unless and until relevant human rights concerns have been resolved.

(Washington, DC) – The United States should immediately halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia following numerous unlawful coalition attacks in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to President Barack Obama. The review announced by the US government following the October 8, 2016 bombing of a crowded funeral hall should examine alleged unlawful airstrikes in which US forces may have taken part and its findings should be released publicly before Obama leaves office.

“While coalition forces bomb homes, schools, hospitals and funerals in Yemen, the United States continues to allow shipments of billions of dollars of arms to Saudi Arabia,” said Sarah Margon, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “President Obama has one final chance to change US policy on Saudi Arabia and Yemen for the better by stopping weapons’ transfers immediately and reviewing possible participation of US forces in the coalition’s many unlawful airstrikes.”

So it would seem that, on the issues of the arms-sales at least, the position of both Amnesty and HRW is pretty much the same as the general viewpoint on this thread.

In Canada, the issue has died for liberals apparently. Trudeau/Freeland's long promised 'review' of the issue has vanished into thin air and nobody seems curious why? 'Compassion fatigue'? Or perhaps the profits trump the murder of Yemenis and Shia in their name?

"Saudi Arabia expects Canada to go ahead with a $15-billion arms deal that would see armoured vehicles [CONTINUE BEING] sold to the kingdom, its minister of state for foreign affairs said Monday. The press secretary to Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland seemed less certain however, saying in a statement that 'no final decision has been made.' 'Canadians value human rights and our foreign policy reflects that..."

"...The letter pointed out that three months have passed since the government said it was looking at cancelling sales to the Kingdom, but nothing has happened. In the interim, Saudi Arabia maintains a military campaign in Yemen while committing war crimes.

While Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland suggested they would try to find a way to end the sales, the government has remained mum since December..."

"In other words, just a few days after Trudeau solemnly proclaimed 'Canada is looking for a way out of the Saudi arms deal,' Canada then exported $130 million worth to them! Will any media report this factoid?

"The most dangerous foreign policy decision of the Trump administration - and I know this is saying a lot - is its decision to share sensitive nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia and authorize US companies to build nuclear reactors in that country.

The drive to build nuclear reactors is led by the [Zionist] half-wit son-in-law of the president, Jared Kushner, who met Tuesday with Salman in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insist there is a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, despite all intelligence reports, including Israeli intelligence reports to the contrary. So, given their unique version of reality, the time to start a weapons program in Saudi Arabia is now..."

So how's that Trudeau/Freeland 'consideration' of continued arms sales to Saudi going, by the way?

"To compare Saudi Arabia's blockade on Al Dorayhimi to the siege of Leningrad by German and Finnish forces in 1944, one of the most notorious and brutal military sieges in history, is no exaggeration..."

"Remember when Saudi Arabia and the UAE bombed a school bus full of children with a US-made missile and western media broke its silence? Now they've bombed a school full of little girls and the same media outlets are completely and willfully ignoring it."

And how's that campaign to stop Canada's own multi-billion dollar contribution to Saudi slaughter going? Notice the silence that has descended? 'Compassion fatigue' no doubt. Feel free to forward this on to your favourite news media about their silence.

I don't know if you realized it at the time, but you made a big impact when you took action to urge Canada to stop the transfer of Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia.

Your action was part of a global day of action commemorating four years since the conflict in Yemen began.

On March 19, we registered your voice alongside over 21,000 others by directly delivering these messages to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland's office in Toronto.

Over 22 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance as a result of the conflict and, by selling arms to the government of Saudi Arabia, Canada is complicit in perpetuating the war.

Our work isn't over, ..

In the coming weeks, we will be working alongside other civil society organizations to urge Canada to adopt laws and regulations that bring it fully into compliance with the provisions of the Arms Trade Treaty, so that arms deals like the LAV transfer to Saudi Arabia won't happen again.

I never heard back from the CLC or Unifor. Crickets. NDPP is right - we need to mobilize in a meaningful way. There are organizations doing so, and let's keep posting information about their statements and activities.

Meanwhile, Canada continues to sell them union-made death machines and buys their oil. Clearly Trudeau/Freeland have no intention of changing the status quo on this lucrative trade, as is evidenced by 'One of Chrystia Freeland's Points to Register', re Yemen: "Appreciate the hard work and heavy lifting by the Saudis and encourage ongoing efforts in this regard."

Amnesty International and several Democratic lawmakers sharply condemned Saudi Arabia's execution of dozens of dissidents this week, which included a student who planned to travel to the U.S. to study at a university.

"US - Saudi war on Yemen death toll reaches 230,000 by year-end including 140,000 dead children under age 5. The US media has imposed a disciplined blackout on reporting this [North] American slaughter. Empire thrives in darkness."

"All weapons used by Saudi in Yemen are coming from the West. Unfortunately, this suffering does not carry much weight with government decisions, so activists and human rights supporters need to put efforts into making governments care..."